nick615 why do think raised bed are waste space

war garden 572 · March 2023

nick615 why do think raised bed are waste space?

gjautos · March 2023

Seems to me this was explained on another thread.

war garden 572 · March 2023

I found the explanation to be poor and lacking in detail!

Skandi · March 2023

It's simple maths, my paths are 30cm. if I had raised beds then 2cm at least on each side is the bed side, so the path is now down to 24cm. (or the bed is narrower) with solid raised sides 24cm is not enough to move in. nor can you get a wheelbarrow down between the beds, but you can if the bed is flat the barrow goes over the bed. To have raised beds you need a gap of at least 60cm between beds. doubling the amount of "wasted" space.

There are many arguments for raised beds, but space use is not one of them.

war garden 572 · March 2023

actually given the both books of mel barthomew "square foot gardening"
and john jeavson "How to Grow More Vegetables",

since it how you use the space in beds not the space of path
that matters. the growing medium in beds also . people in
uk use the wrong spacing. it is production that matters.
both books give you better production from raised beds
not flat or arched beds and that is by the math.
rows produce less.

once finished my conversion of the dig for victory plans in
leaflet 23 and grow for summer and winter in to both
systems in both books mentioned above I will show you
math that proves you wrong.

ps mel barthomew was a retired efficacy engineer so I trust his math over yours.

Skandi · March 2023

Ah yes The wrong spacing... indeed how can there possibly be more than one way to skin a cat? If I want small onions I plant them close together, if I want large ones they get planted further apart. Same for almost all vegetables. Maximum yield with onions is about 20 per square foot, but they are small 1 1/4 inches so not what anyone wants, therefore one sacrifices some yield for convenience.

One can also sacrifice yield for speed. (and vice versa) widely spaced carrots will mature earlier than tightly spaced carrots. given time the tightly spaced carrots will produce more however.

Commercial green beans are planted less than 1inch apart, I doubt anyone on here including myself does so. But that spacing gives the biggest yield for a single harvest. I do plant my peas 1inch apart as that gives the largest yield per ft. But not of course the largest yield per seed.

Theoretical maths isn't going to prove anything. You tell me what you are going to plant, and how many of each plant and we can both plant the same in our own ways. Then weigh the results. Just stick to cold weather plants since I can't grow tomatoes or anything that likes that amount of heat outside. We can keep it in feet and inches to make it easier for you.

You believe what you want to believe I will trust people who actually grow vegetables at scale and not those trying to sell books.

war garden 572 · March 2023

as for onion we plant depending type 9-16 per square foot

small farmer here plants beans 4 inches apart these are bush beans.
in all directions a small farmer for example would have 4ft wide bed 50-100ft long
and walk way between beds 3 foot wide for green beans or what you call French beans in UK.

if I plant a bed 4ft x 4ft bed with
4 in spacing that's 9 plants per square foot and 144 plants per
4ft x 4ft area and that's just symmetrical spacing if you use offset
spacing you get 162 plants for 4in in a 4ft x 4ft
bed of block planted beans.
if I plant corn. I can plant 16
25, or 64 plants depending on the type in 4ftx 4ft bed given 2 ears per
plant I get 32, 25, 126 ears per bed
you might want check your math.

if want to cite page number of books i will
but i got similar results to the numbers in the books.
I mentioned in the previous post.

debs64 · March 2023

What do taller farmers do?

Fairygirl · March 2023

debs64 said:

What do taller farmers do?

What do really fat ones do?

If you have crappy, solid, sticky clay as the starting point, raised beds make life much easier - regardless of whether it's fruit, veg or ornamentals you grow.
I hate to think of the mess I'd have if borders were just adjacent to paths, grass etc, with no definition. You need an edging of some kind, at least, to stop soil encroaching, so that - in effect - is a raised bed.

If there's no edging, you can certainly keep building up the soil in the beds, but you'd then have to do the 'small slit/trench at the edge' method to prevent soil falling down onto the surrounding areas. That's less of a problem if there's paving, as you can just brush it back in, but not so easy if it's gravel.
If you have lots of birds - especially thrushes and blackbirds - you're having to do a lot of soil replacing....

BenCotto · March 2023

Am I out of synch in being oblivious to ways of maximising yields? Even with my slapdash, that’ll-do ways I still end up with unmanageable summer gluts and give much away to the community fridge or to neighbours (“all right, I’ll take your runner beans but only if you agree to have courgettes in return”).

I tried the square foot approach one year, it was a jumbled mess.

Fairygirl · March 2023

No, you're not @BenCotto. Most of us don't want just a massive allotment in our back gardens.

Some folk just don't understand the concept of a happy medium.

nick615 why do think raised bed are waste space

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